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and of their skill in war. By Irish workmen, therefore, and in the 

 early ages, in all probability the towers in Scotland were built, and 

 this idea receives support from the claim preferred with great 

 warmth by the ancient Picts to the possession of the bones of St, 

 Bridget, which they insisted lay buried at Abernethy. This Irish 

 saint is venerated in a peculiar manner over the west of Scot- 

 land, and in the Hebrides, which are even said to have been named 

 in honour of her their great protectress.* 



The colonists of later times accompanying the Christian missiona- 

 ries, who passed from Ireland into Caledonia, seem to have been 

 chiefly engaged in the Western Islands, where they formed several 

 large monastic establishments. At lona, in particular, St. Columba 

 erected a cathedral and several other churches. Had the Irish 

 chieftains been in the habit of raising round towers as appendages, 

 for whatever purpose, to their ecclesiastical foundations, would they 

 not have adorned Oransay or lona, the holy Isle of Saints, with one 

 or more of these beautiful buildings ? iivii ^ 



Of similar towers in other countries, which appear to be at all 

 connected with the present subject, the following selection from the 

 most authentic descriptions, is, even at the hazard of being tedious, 

 here presented. 



It appears from Elphinstone's Travels in Caubul, that the tribe of 

 Hazaureh dwell in villages of thatched houses, each village de- 

 fended by a lofty tower, capable of holding ten or twelve men : a 

 kettle drum is kept in each tower, and in time of peace one man 

 constantly resides there to give alarm. When one drum is beaten, 

 the sound is taken up, and repeated from station to station, upon 

 which signal the people hasten to the point from whence the alarm 



* Macpherson on the Antiquities of Scotland, pp. 217 — 218. 



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